IV. Emptiness

They say death is the most natural and certain thing in this life. But no matter how certain death is, it never quite prepares you for that moment. The smell, the coldness, the eyes that were once filled with light, now glazed and empty. I told you before you took your last breaths that if you need to go, you can, we will be okay, I will be okay. But seconds later I was rushing to feel a pulse in your wrist, laid my head upon your chest, fallen to my knees, trying to keep quiet so no one else could hear my pain. I sat there for ten minutes alone with your body before me, now departed from this world.

Two years later and I still wake up in a sweat, trying to catch my breath, reliving those four moments.

We have all lost someone. But actually witnessing it their cold touch, their blackened eyes, their stiff hands that used to be so soft to touch it does something to you that you can’t quite recover from. So you move forward, you try to remove it from your memory. But once something happens to you, it can take a lifetime to recover. And by that time, it has become your turn to return to where all humans must go.

For now, I am weighed down by the feeling of a heart I cannot remember when it was last whole.

For as long as I can remember, my heart has always felt as though something is missing. I’ve struggled all my life to find that missing piece, which I have not yet found but I hope to one day find that one piece that makes my heart feel complete and no longer aching.